Class Library Construction

Funded Oct 6, 2019

First and foremost, thank you so much for all of your attention, kindness, and donations! The looks on my students' faces when we received each and every package containing their new books was priceless! In those moments it was clear to me that they were extremely grateful for the generosity of people they did not personally know. It was refreshing to see the students get excited about brand new books to expand their classroom library.

Literacy at a fourth grade level can be a huge turning point in a student's academic career. As they begin to enter their formative years, this is where they look to expand on their interests in terms of reading materials. That and the fact that many of my students are bilingual scholars, allows for the expansion of academic literacy skills. Some of those skills include things like translanguaging, identifying key elements of a story or informational text, and character development. Being able to work on these skills through your help will push for a very exciting transition from 4th to 5th grade.

Most of these books will be used during independent reading or guided reading time. Some of the exercises that we practice as part of our classroom culture, are character mind maps, inference charts, and continuing the story. When students create character mind maps, they choose a character from a story and expand on the thoughts, feelings, actions, and overall development of said character throughout the story. Inference charts usually involve students making predictions as to what could possibly happen after stopping at a specific point in the story. And finally, continuing the story is where students adapt what they already know about a book and write an expansion given the information they already have. Being able to practice these skills across two languages through different texts and textual worlds, opens a whole new expansion of mind and academic development. All of this has been made possible because of your contribution to our classroom.

Once more, THANK YOU for all you have made possible!”

With gratitude,

Mr. Moran